Of Bananas and Brilliance
by PenguinofProse
Summary: Albus watches enviously as Rose and Scorpius pair up through the medium of a sex ed lesson. Written for Practice Round One of the International Wizarding School Championship.


**a/n This was written for Practice Round One of the International Wizarding School Championship. This is my first attempt at Albus, Scorpius and Rose so I hope you enjoy it!**

**Story Title: Of Bananas and Brilliance**

**School: Ilvermorny**

**Prompts: Albus Severus Potter, envy, banana**

**Theme: PSHE lesson**

**Year: 2**

**Wordcount: 1977**

Albus Potter understood why PSHE was a necessary addition to the Hogwarts curriculum. His Aunt Hermione had rather _insisted _on his understanding it, after all the time and effort she had put into bringing it about. All the same, one thing remained unclear to say the least. Why on Earth was it necessary for the classroom to be quite so thoroughly uncomfortable? As a new feature of the timetable, the subject had been shoehorned into some old room in the eaves which was far too small to be fit for purpose. Never mind swinging a cat, Al was pretty sure he'd struggle to rotate a moderately sized rat without taking someone's eye out. He thanked his lucky stars that, at least, he seemed to have missed out on the _taller_ of the Weasley genes – far too many of his fellow students had already had to report to the hospital wing with concussions from close encounters with the roofbeams. The chairs were alright, he supposed – sort of wooden and unobjectionable in the style of so much school furniture – as were the desks. Yes, the problem lay not with their material or construction so much as with the way they were crammed in here so tightly that he was already overheated. He could only image how much worse the situation would get when the lesson began – he understood penises were to be mentioned today, and the mere thought made his face grow even hotter. In desperate need of distraction from that thought, he tried to occupy his mind by taking in the collection of posters adorning the walls in tasteless primary colours. This, however, turned out to be a serious error. They were all, unfortunately, entirely relevant to the sex education course he currently found himself obliged to endure.

The one silver lining was that, at least, they were muggle posters and not made by wizards. He thought a _moving_ diagram of the female reproductive organs would have been more than he could cope with.

He cringed and forced his attention to the front desk. The aptly but somewhat unfortunately named Professor Titterings had started to speak and he decided that probably he had better listen to her than not.

"Welcome, class, welcome. For today's lesson you shall need to pair up with someone of the opposite sex, please."

That was met by groaning, for the most part, but of course Rose had something else to say about the instruction.

"It's terribly outdated to define people by their genitals." She hissed, not making quite enough effort to avoid being overheard.

"Yes, absolutely. Quite so." Scorpius agreed with her – no surprises there. Agreeing with Rose seemed to be his favourite hobby these days. "All the same, want to pair up?"

_What? _He was fairly sure this was not a thing. Scorpius and Rose did not just pair up together right in front of him. It was not a thing that happened. It was not a thing that was _allowed_.

Well, it seemed that his best friend and his cousin had not got that memo, as Rose answered in the affirmative and Scorpius _glowed_ a little in response and murmured something about how that sounded _super-duper_. And then her cheeks coloured as well and, really, this was all getting a little ridiculous, he thought. They were only red in the face because it was bloody hot in here, he told himself firmly.

All the same, he found himself feeling rather envious of his cousin. He was no stranger to envy, of course – in fact, he mused, they were _intimately_ acquainted. Scorpius would probably have laughed at that sex ed pun, he thought, were he not currently laughing at literally everything Rose said. His childhood had taught him the useful skill of being envious of a vast number of people all at once, from his brilliant cousin to literally every non-Potter in the entire world. He was good at a spot of envy-based multitasking. So it was that, even as he found himself paired up with a displeased Polly Chapman and got on with half following the lesson, he managed simultaneously to stew in a rather stodgy soup of jealousy. Scorpius was his partner – that was the way it had always been – and he was the _best_ partner, patient and helpful and clever and fair. Rose didn't get to just swoop in and take his partner just because of some stupid rule that they had to have a partner of the opposite sex.

Obviously, his jealousy was restricted entirely to the matter at hand, and the question of whether it was fair to leave him in the lurch when it came to classroom activities. He had no feelings on the matter of his best friend and his cousin _blushing_ at each other. None at all.

He became even more covetous of Rose's partner as the aim of the lesson was revealed to them. They were, it turned out, tasked with putting a condom on a banana. This seemed a bit of a waste of time, if he was being honest, but of course when Professor Titterings asked the question Rose was only too glad to enlighten them as to what the point of the activity might be.

"It's in case we ever have sex with a muggle." She explained with more enthusiasm than he thought was truly warranted. "So we can't use the contraceptive or anti-STI charms without breaking the statute of secrecy."

"Anything to add, Malfoy?"

"Well, yes. A muggle might be more comfortable using a method of contraception with which they are familiar from their own culture." Albus was all for muggle equality, but that sounded a bit bonkers to him, really. But Rose was looking at his best friend as if he'd hung the moon and he thought that made her a bit slow on the uptake, for once. He'd known that Scorpius was the best person for years. He hadn't needed some ridiculous lesson about muggle condoms to see it.

They set about condomming their bananas, but after ten minutes of rather slippery struggles he had clearly not yet managed to erase the anger from his eyes or relax the jealous set to his jaw. He had some vague notion that Rose had said his name a couple of times, as if trying to get his attention, but it wasn't until she was actually waving a hand in front of his face that he allowed himself to notice her.

"What's wrong with you, then?" She asked with all the tact she had inherited from her father.

"Nothing." He muttered, aware that the tone of his voice made the answer less than convincing.

She snorted, and continued with all the persistence she had inherited from her mother.

"That's not nothing." She informed him briskly. "You've got your fists clenched so tight your banana's gone all mushy."

"Has not." He told her rather childishly, attempting to hide the offending fruit while Polly Chapman rolled her eyes and busied herself in doodling on her textbook.

"Stop it." She reached out and confiscated the banana with, he thought, at least a little officiousness. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Scorpius is my partner." He told her, eyes fixed on the desk. "You can't just take him. He's the best partner, he's super to work with, and he's been my partner since forever."

"You think I paired up with him because of his _teamwork skills_?" She asked, not a little incredulously, and he found himself understanding that there really was quite a lot to the blushing after all. "Wow. You really do need PSHE lessons."

That, he thought, was rather insulting. He found himself reaching the entirely mature decision that he would speak to neither of them for the remainder of the lesson.

…...

Albus hadn't been _moping_ in the common room since the end of their PSHE lesson, of course. No, not at all. As it happened, he _had_ been staring at the chess board in a slightly moody fashion, but that was only because it was quite difficult to play chess alone. And, sure, he'd gazed grumpily at a book for a while, but that was just because reading was only really fun with a friend. After all, he didn't even really _like_ reading. He just knew that Scorpius did.

He'd been there for a solid three hours and was contemplating whether he was in a sufficiently bad mood to forgo supper by the time the door opened to reveal his best friend. At the sight of him, Albus jumped into a sort of slightly electrified sitting position and and made a great display of studying the playing cards in his hand.

"Hello." Scorpius greeted his shoes quietly.

"Hello."

"So, about earlier. And this afternoon. And now, I suppose. I – I didn't mean to ditch you. I just – you know – she's brilliant." His friend trailed off into embarrassed silence, still frozen in the doorway as if unsure of his welcome, and he found that, perhaps, the situation was at least a little amusing.

"You're screwed." He told him cheerfully.

"Yes, I think I might be."

He snorted a brief laugh at that, and opened his mouth, wondering about saying something conciliatory about how it was all _fine_. After all, their friendship was really quite important to him.

"I am sorry." Scorpius beat him to it. "She's brilliant, sure, but – you're my best friend. You'll always be more brilliant. In a different way though, of course." He rushed to add in something of a panic.

"You – you think so?"

"Of course I do. You were my best friend long before she even noticed I existed." Scorpius started walking slowly away from his post by the door and approached the sofa.

"It's OK, you know. I think she didn't exactly win the genetic lottery – all that Weasley-Granger hair – but if you're into her -"

"I am." Scorpius interrupted easily. Albus supposed that his friend had had a good five years now to be sure of this fact.

"OK. That's cool?"

"It is? Thank goodness." Scorpius suddenly engulfed him in a rather overenthusiastic hug. "I'm so pleased. Because, well, we're going into Hogsmeade this weekend and I didn't want it to be an issue."

"We are?"

"Oh. Well no. This is awkward." Scorpius supplied, as if he hadn't noticed that fact for himself. After the conversation they'd just had, how could he still imagine he wanted to spend the weekend with _him_? "Not we- _we_. Rose and I."

"You – you are?"

"Yes. I asked her after PSHE. She liked that I was sensible about the condoms. She thought I was _mature and respectful of muggles_." His friend practically sang the words, beaming with pride, and he found that perhaps it was becoming rather difficult to stay upset with him when he was so thoroughly _happy_. "But we won't hang out the whole day, I guess. I'll still go to Honeyduke's with you as usual."

He paused for a moment and considered the situation. So his cousin and his best friend were going to Hogsmeade. Without him. But then again, for the first time in his life, someone had told him he was _more brilliant_ than Rose Granger-Weasley.

"It's OK." He said, with a slow smile. "You have a good time. We can hang out any time. But just so you know, I think you're brilliant too. And I think she's _bananas_ for only just seeing it."

His friend cracked up at that, as he had known he would. After all, no-one knew Scorpius Malfoy as well as he did.

**a/n Thanks for reading!**


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